In the lighting industry, one may hear the terms “high bay” and “low bay” lighting, which generally refers to the space and the height of the ceilings involved. There are no standard numerical value to define what constitute high bay or low bay. Typical definition found in the industry designated high bay to mean >20 feet and low bay to mean <20 feet off the floor. The terms high bay and low bay also refer to the fixtures designed for these applications, although it is not uncommon to see high bay fixtures in low bay applications, and vice versa. For simplicity purposes and within the context of this application, we shall refer to high bay and low bay as high ceilings and low ceilings respectively, along with the respective fixtures associated with these applications.
These high bay or low bay spaces are typically found in large indoor facilities such as factories, warehouses, large retail stores, athletic facilities or gymnasiums, etc. Lighting in these facilities has long been dominated by High Intensity Discharge (HID) lighting systems such as metal halide and high pressure sodium lamps. HID lamps are compact, rugged, powerful light sources, well suited for illuminating large indoor spaces with a crisp, white light. These systems are able to operate reliably in a wide range of ambient temperatures, with numerous fixtures specially designed to operate in demanding environments such as hazardous locations. However, HID lamps have a number of disadvantages. They have a slow warm up time and even slower to re-strike (turn on after being turned off). As such, they are unsuitable for frequent switching applications. They are not fully dimmable and do not offer multi level lighting. Most significantly, service life, light output and efficacy severely degrade over time.
New developments in fluorescent (T5/T8), LED and induction lighting technology have emerges that provide more advantages over HID systems. However, implementation of the newer technology entails a redesign of the entire lighting system or replacing the old fixtures and usually cannot be done in-house. This process is time consuming and labor intensive. Furthermore, the process requires closing down sections of the facilities during the construction, increasing the impact of the time and effort required to replace the old fixtures. Additionally, replacement of the old fixtures require disposal of the entire fixture, creating disposal costs and other issues.
Thus, there is a need for a light fixture retrofit kit that can be easily installed with a minimum amount of time and labor while providing the advantages of the newer, more energy efficient alternatives over HID systems. The multi-level light fixture retrofit kit disclosed in the present invention provide lighting upgrade that can be done in-house and as part of routine maintenance, making these easy, non-disruptive, low-risk investments with relatively quick payback rates.